


The Willing Alchemist

by yearofthekoi



Series: Shibboleth [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Ed Swears, Feminism, Gen, Guns, Making Friends, Militarized Masculinity, Parental Riza Hawkeye, Parental Roy Mustang, Period-Typical Racism, Politics, Roy swears, Training Ed, class, past Royai, puberty!!!!!, stolen valor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-08-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:48:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,357
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24814819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yearofthekoi/pseuds/yearofthekoi
Summary: Roy had thought after dealing with the kid chained to a desk all winter, with his impertinent comments of how the military did everything in the stupidest way possible, that Riza would want the kid out of her hair.  But here she was, standing in front of his desk, her chin high as her eyes sparkled even though her voice was its typical stable, soft tone.“Colonel, he’s not going to like it and nor will the Cadets,” Lieutenant Hawkeye lectured, “Fullmetal is not like other boys!  I should train him.”Six months after Ed joins the military, Colonel Roy Mustang was receiving notice after notice from Central Command with one question: Was the Fullmetal Alchemist ready to be sent to the field?  Instead, he devises a plan to delay their desires for Edward Elric's life and blood and to give the poor kid a sense of normalcy.  Plans, however, have a habit of going awry.
Relationships: Edward Elric & Grumman, Edward Elric & Riza Hawkeye, Edward Elric & Roy Mustang, Grumman & Riza Hawkeye
Series: Shibboleth [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1794922
Comments: 40
Kudos: 122





	1. Chapter 1

  
_To do my job obediently  
Is all that I desire  
To learn my weapon thoroughly  
And how to aim and fire_

[The Willing Conscript](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIMiJ_Ox7kM), Pete Seeger

  


Roy had thought after dealing with the kid chained to a desk all winter, with his impertinent comments of how the military did everything in the stupidest way possible, that Riza would want the kid out of her hair. But here she was, standing in front of his desk, her chin high as her eyes sparkled even though her voice was its typical stable, soft tone. 

“Colonel, he’s not going to like it and nor will the Cadets,” Lieutenant Hawkeye lectured, “Fullmetal is not like other boys! I should train him.” 

Roy suppressed a grin. Riza was beautiful when she was angry. He wished momentarily he had never dragged her into his penance: she’d be a good mother. Roy regretfully pushed his fantasies deep into the locked storage closet into the recesses of his mind. 

He ran his fingers through his hair before reprimanding her, trying to make his tone stern. “Lieutenant, that’s enough. The youngest cadet is, what, a year older than Fullmetal? He’s isolated here - he talks to no one outside of his brother! No soldier is going to become his friend. All he does is complain, research, and work. ” 

He breathed in through his nose and pinched its bridge, his eyes closed. In theory, he would prefer if the lieutenant, as an expert marksman, taught the kid, but Roy was trying to evade the nearly weekly messages he was getting from Central Command asking him when Fullmetal would be put in the field. He could barely tolerate their ideas for what the thirteen-year-old should handle first: terrorist investigations, a national drug syndicate, an arms trader. Or the near-universal favorite he had heard now over a dozen times: Following up with the child trafficking ring the boy accidentally stumbled on back in November. Despite his promises that day, the kid wasn’t ready, and he preferred if the boy remained unready for as long as possible. 

“I’ve been getting letters, mission dossiers. The brass is becoming... impatient, as the weather has been warming up, due to what happened in November. They want a symbol, a myth, something they can sell. You understand,” he slowly hinted as he caught her still defiant gaze. 

Her walnut eyes briefly went wide and she schooled the barest hint of a frown out of her otherwise impassive face. “I see.” He gave her the tiniest of smiles and sighed. Riza always understood. “This is still a bad idea,” she warned. 

“Do you have a better one?” Roy sharply asked, grabbing his white coffee mug off his desk and then trying to drink from it. Instead, he blinked and stared at the deep brown stain on the bottom. Not a drop of the caffeinated liquid was left. He rubbed his hands down his face, wishing he had more. He had finished the military’s overly burnt cup in record time that morning because he had to arrange everything with the pompous befehlshaber1 in charge of all of the Ranger Cadets in the East City district before the kids went to school. And now he had to deal with Elric, short on sleep. “Send him in, please.” 

Riza gave him a curt nod and exited his office. Not for the first time, Roy wished she’d wear the formal uniform skirt instead of the trousers and cavalry skirt as he tried to watch her long, strong legs walk out of his office door, even though he knew it would cause her problems. 

The spring in his wood office chair squeaked as he leaned back. Frowning, he wondered how he was going to avoid explaining to the kid. He asked too many questions when something bothered him, and this would definitely pique him at best, and make him angry at worst. 

He heard Fullmetal knock, and his chair seat sprang as he straightened himself. The kid stood in the doorframe decked in his usual gothic black outfit and ridiculous platform boots. Roy pursed his lips and wondered briefly if it would be overstepping to take the kid shopping for normal clothing. While the military may be acting in loco parentis, and therefore he had some parental-like authority over Elric, Roy somehow knew it would be extremely weird to dress him. Maybe the next time he got his automail checked up, he could convince Doctor Rockbell to help him buy less strange clothing. 

“What do you want?” Elric challenged, his eyebrows furrowed, arms crossed across his chest. 

Roy sighed. He had not been this cranky when he was thirteen. He had charmed everyone, except Riza and Master Hawkeye. Hell, by his age, he already had his first kiss with a girl. 

“You’re supposed to salute and wait for me to acknowledge you before saying something,” Roy swore this was the thousandth time he had repeated himself. 

“But I’m not a soldier!” the kid whined. 

“Because you’re too small to be one,” Roy muttered under his breath while rolling his eyes. 

While Roy knew Fullmetal could fight his way out of a dangerous situation if he had to after what happened in November, there was no way this kid was ready to fight, in the field, ordering soldiers twice, three times his size while being taken seriously. He clenched his jaw and spat out, “Just do it.” 

Fullmetal angstily raised his hand to his brow, smushing his too-long bangs into his eyes, and glared. Roy sighed and bit his lip. At least the kid’s arm had stopped flopping around like a rag doll when he saluted. Was it seriously too hard for the kid to remember courtesies? Just once, he’d like it if Fullmetal said something like ‘permission to speak freely, sir?’ like a normal officer. 

The kid’s black jacket sleeve dropped down, causing his arm to reflect the harsh sunlight from the window as a bright white spot on his desk. Maybe the lieutenant was right. The kid was nothing like the other officers’ supposedly clean-cut brats. Most of those stuck up, idiot teenage monsters who seemed to practice goose-stepping every afternoon were going to end up in Ritterdam. Some might even manage to scrape by and graduate with a commission, though based on their fathers’ performance and his own memories, it was no wonder Ritterdam had a reputation for being difficult, even if he found the curriculum lacking. 

Meanwhile, the kid was almost definitely going to become a field officer as soon as it was legal for him to swear the military’s oath, considering the resources the Fuhrer was pouring into the poor kid already and the pressure he was getting from the Fuhrer’s lackeys in Central Command. 

Roy pointed to the conference chair placed in front of his desk. “Sit,” he ordered. 

Grunting, the kid grabbed the seat and parked himself in it, arms crossing his chest.<

“What do you want? I said I would have that report typed up by the end of the week didn’t I?” Elric repeated, jutting his chin forward. 

Roy took a deep breath and smoothed his face. He really didn’t deserve the kid’s attitude, not while he was going out of the way to help the kid. 

“At fifteen-thirty, you are to report to the armory next to the range in order to join the Ranger Cadets,” he stated. 

“Why?” the kid exclaimed, frowning. Roy held back the urge to roll his eyes. 

“To review the basics of marksmanship. You’ll be learning with them for the next few weeks.” 

Elric’s mouth dropped open. _Here we go._ “Why? I already know how to protect myself, and it will take away from my research time!” the kid whined. 

“You are going to be learning with them,” Roy repeated, forcing himself to stay calm, “I’ll make it an order if I have to.” 

The kid’s eyes turned molten gold as he glowered. “Can Al come?” 

“We’ve had this discussion,” Roy said, trying not to grit his teeth. 

“If he’s my ‘alchemical construct’ shouldn’t he come with me?” the kid complained while sarcastically air-quoting with his hands as he slouched in his seat. No wonder he hasn’t had his first kiss, what teenage girl would put up with this nonsense. 

“Just because we are pretending he’s your imaginary brother come to life, doesn’t mean you should drag him with you.” 

The chair scraped across the wood floor as the kid forcefully pushed himself out of it. “But he _is_ my brother!” 

Roy slammed his clenched hands down, hard on his desk next to his blotter. His desktop echoed with a metallic thud, causing his papers in his inbox to start to flutter around. He breathed once through his nose, and closing his eyes, he coldly said, “No, and that’s an order. Fifteen-thirty, the armory, alone!” 

The kid scrunched his nose and glared before turning towards the door. 

Roy furrowed his eyebrows together, wrinkling his nose. “I didn’t dismiss you.” 

“Can I go back to work?” Elric said angrily, the dredges of his eastern farm-boy brogue leaking as he spoke as an obvious tell, his back still facing the desk. Roy shook his head. The kid was definitely _not_ ready for active duty, even if it was only going to be in a limited context. 

“It’s ‘May I go back to work, sir?’” Roy corrected through his clenched teeth. God, he was sick of correcting the kid, but it never stopped the pit in his stomach that started to gape open at the thought of the kid in front of him interacting with the rest of the leadership of the General Staff at Eastern Command, let alone working closely with enlisted men. 

The kid turned around, his hands balled and his eyes narrowed. Roy wondered if he should start praying that the kid will one day understand why he forces him to get this right. “Can I go back to work, sir?” Elric sarcastically requested. Rolling his eyes, Roy said, “Go.” The kid stomped off - the glass in his office door rattled as he slammed it shut. White spots started to form behind Roy’s eyes and his head started to throb. _Every single time the kid got angry..._ He really needed more coffee. 

He turned his chair towards the window behind him and rolled his head back, pinching the bridge of his nose in order to get rid of his newly-formed headache. He was not cut out for this crap. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Commander/authority, german The (paid) adult in charge of all of the Ranger Cadet troops in a specific district. [ return to text ]
> 
> * * *
> 
> Roy in no way had his first kiss at age 13. He's just fooling himself.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Bullying
> 
> Also, because it needs to be said, just in case:
> 
>  ** _Absolutely do not do what the kids in this scene do, ever._** You could **_kill_** someone.

"Shut your cock-holster!" Roy heard Elric's dulcet screech, his eastern farm brogue thick, through the General's closed office door. Roy grimaced. He made a mental note to dress down whichever enlisted men had been teaching the boy curses - it was making this shitshow worse. This was definitely not how he had wanted the pain-in-the-ass kid to meet Grumman. The kid needed as many allies as he could find, damn it.

Stilling his face, he hastened his way inside and gave a crisp salute. Suddenly, a sandy-haired man stepped in front of him. He stuck his crooked nose, nostrils flaring, into Roy's face, his attacker's out-of-regulation muttonchops hiding whatever was behind him.

"What were you thinking, making my son train that feral puppy! You should have your commissions revoked!" Lieutenant Colonel von Trenck howled, gesturing somewhere behind him.

"Not a fucking puppy and your kid deserved it!" The kid's accent continued to thicken. Roy wanted to look around to see what havoc Elric had created, but until he was acknowledged he was stuck with one of his least favorite fellow officers in his face. At least his subordinates admitted that von Trenck slow-walked disbursements and pay for soldiers and units he decided were inadequately... patriotic.

From far too much experience, Roy knew _exactly_ the kind of soldier the paymaster assumed about. He had begged Grumman to have his office financed out of the budget of State Alchemist Warfare Management based in Central Command. So far, to keep the peace, Grumman had declined asking Old Man Grand.

The doughy lieutenant colonel started to spit out, "Your, protege, is ..."

"Colonel von Trenck and Mr. ..." Grumman impatiently cut them off.

The kid harrumphed, "Edward, Edward Elric."

"And Mr. Elric, that is enough," the general sighed, picking up one of the two thoroughly destroyed bolt rifles that sat on his expansive desk. The parkerized steel barrels were melted like candle wax. The wood stocks were splintered in ways Roy didn't know was possible for a firearm to be destroyed. No parts were left unwarped - even the bolt action was unmistakably bent to permanently prevent a bullet from being loaded and fired.

Roy's eyebrows went up just a hair as he tried to control his reaction. Those were DK1892 Cowans-Mannlichers, the same rifle he originally trained with at Ritterdam. They had a well-deserved reputation for being indestructible despite the slow reloading mechanism. He had even been assigned one alongside his service pistol in Ishval despite the rollout of the DK1903 since no one expected him to shoot his, but regulations said he had to have a rifle in a combat zone - and he ended up having way fewer sand clogs than the men in his platoon.

Lieutenant Colonel von Trenck pulled at the collar of the dress shirt he wore underneath his uniform jacket. He hastened towards the velvet sofa in the corner of Roy's eye, the one that the general used to hold staff meeting discussions, and placed a comforting hand on the shoulder of an equally sandy-haired teenager in a Ranger Cadet uniform. He was leaning deeply into the couch back, his eyes closed. Based on the boy's reaction, he was very obviously the lieutenant colonel's son.

The lieutenant colonel's son's formerly pristine uniform was covered in ground-in dirt. His shoeless foot- with an ankle the size of a spaldeen1 \- was propped up on the general's coffee table. He was leaning his head back while using the Ranger Cadet's grass green and white armband as some sort of kerchief to stop the bleeding from his clearly broken nose. Roy forced his face to stay still even though he felt laughter bubbling up - now both he and his father would both have crooked noses that they probably both deserved if the boy was as petty as his father.

Another equally beat-up boy, with the barest hint of his first mustache, in an equally dirty uniform, slumped next to the first on the sofa, nursing what looked to be a broken arm while biting his lip, The boy turned his head, and milk chocolate eyes tight from embarrassment quickly scanned over Roy as if he was hoping for anyone else. One was swollen and starting to bruise - he was going to wake up with a nice shiner the next morning.

"Colonel Mustang, at ease," acknowledged the General from behind his desk. Roy released his salute and looked towards the extremely comfortable leather armchairs on the side of the room that he swore Grumman chose in order to lull his chess competitors into spacing out. Elric was slouched in one of them, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes hot and narrow. Outside of a few dirt smudges, there wasn't a scratch on him.

Roy wrinkled his eyebrows. He knew that Elric had a temper; he certainly had been subjected to the kid's rants regularly over when exactly he could go to some obscure library or another overnight, by himself, in some far off location that military intelligence assumed was unstable. Still, he only had seen Elric hit someone exactly once, and that crook had deserved it.

"Well, as Major Druckmaschinen is currently on a staff ride, would you gentlemen care to explain why my soldiers had to break up a fight on a firing range that I had graciously loaned to your kameradschaft2?" Grumman ordered the uniformed boys, with an artificially friendly smile pasted underneath his waxed mustache that seemed to slice his face in half. Roy wasn't surprised: It was the same smile as when Grumman grilled his staff about whatever the newest example of gross incompetence had occurred in Eastern Command, and these kids were the newest example of gross incompetence. Fighting on the range by soldiers almost always equaled a Section 14 for soldiers.

"He's a miniature jerk who can't follow orders, that's what," sullenly mentioned Major Druckmaschinen's son.

"Miniature…" Elric bitterly snorted and cracked the knuckles of his flesh hand, trying to darkly stare the other teenagers down. "That's not what happened," he indignantly muttered under his breath. _Typical, he has to talk back._ Roy refrained from rolling his eyes.

"Mr. Elric, I will get to you shortly, " Grumman sharply said. He gestured back to the Ranger Cadets. "Continue."

The sandy-haired boy pulled his armband away from his nose, as his father squeezed his shoulder, and self-righteously looked the General square in the eye.

"We were giving him some orders when he reached out and somehow melted the barrels of our rifles for no reason. I had to take him down a notch, sir, for good unit safety and discipline. Druckmaschinen was just helping to reprimand someone who should have never been placed in a Ranger Cadet kameradschaft," the von Trenck boy piteously explained while Elric exaggeratedly rolled his eyes.

Roy started to frown, looking at the still bleeding teenager. Elric came from the heart of rural eastern farm country, a tiny town of farmers and shepherds with a few ancient factories for dyeing and weaving cloth. Resembool, for the Eminent's sake, saw more wolves in a year than cars. He hadn't seen any firearms in Doctor Rockbell's house when he tried to recruit the poor kid. Besides, Doctor Rockbell would have given Elric a serious belting if she had heard from the neighbors that he had fooled around with a deadly weapon unsupervised or in an unsafe fashion. The kid probably knew more about basic weapons safety from family friends than most military brats based on what Roy gleaned from the contacts he made in Resembool after the kid's Doctor-Neighbor-Caretaker called him to curse about how the kid was getting automail surgery specifically to take the State Alchemist exam.

"What was the order?" Grumman prompted, his finger tapping softly on his desk.

"To shoot the target. He had decided he wanted to hang back and read instead. So we took the book away and tried to force him in front of the target," the sandy-haired Ranger Cadet far too calmly explained.

Roy cocked his head and pursed his lips, examining the hauptmann3 of the Ranger Cadets. As far as he could tell, this was well within normal behavior for a hauptmann of a kameradschaft - not that he knew outside of stories from his Ritterdam classmates. He had been one of the rare few in Ritterdam who did not go to a fancy kadettenanstalt4 boarding school or excelled at leading Ranger Cadets. They had offered him one of the few spaces available to high passes on the MORTs after being recruited by one of the officers that had regularly, harassed, Master Hawkeye, despite his background.

He glanced at Elric, who was tightly gripping the wood of the chair arms, his face contorted in fury. Something about what the other teen said rang false, though Roy couldn't tell what.

The general peered down over his rimless glasses at the golden-haired kid. "Why did you disobey orders?" he sternly asked.

Elric stared down the other two teens, his eyes turning almost green, as he willed them to dare defy him. "Because I don't obey stupid orders, sir," he spat out slowly, each word clearly enunciated, his brogue smoothed mostly away. Roy bit his tongue to prevent himself from gaping like an idiot who couldn't tell hydrogen from lithium. He called the Old Fox sir! Elric actually got the military courtesy mostly right! Sure, he was still being an independent, impertinent little asshole with his comment, but, he called the general sir without prompting. Roy furrowed his brow. Why wouldn't the kid call him sir?

The general blinked twice, and frowned, his caterpillar eyebrows coming together below the frames of his rimless glasses. "You don't obey stupid orders? I fail to see what was stupid about these orders."

The kid huffed and crossed his arms across his chest before staring up into the general's eyes. "I'm not required to follow their orders - I was only required to learn to shoot, despite being more than capable of protecting myself. I had no familiarity with the gun..."

Roy automatically corrected him, "Firearm." Maybe it was too soon to say the kid was finally starting to understand the world he stuck himself into and its manners.

Elric rolled his eyes and continued, "Rifle I was given. I was told at home by my friend's father never to touch, never to fire, a firearm," he emphasized, briefly giving Roy a look of sheer annoyance, "that I wasn't familiar with because they're dangerous. When that guy," he pointed with his chin towards the Ranger Cadet with the broken nose, "handed me a rifle, I asked for guidance. When they proceeded to laugh, I went off to read and keep an eye on them, since, clearly, these chuckleheads didn't care about firearm safety. They grabbed me, and I told them to get their hands off of a government official, and when they didn't..." Elric shrugged and snorted out of his nose. "They got what they deserved, let's just say that."

Druckmaschinen's kid jumped up from the velvet couch and pointed with his functioning arm at Elric. "Chucklehead! If we had known you were a bleeding state alchemist, we definitely would have dragged you in front of the target and shot at you," the Ranger Cadet's chocolate brown eyes snapped up at Roy's, "Just like you deserve, glory hound." Roy's jaw dropped open. He wasn't sure what was more shocking and stupid: that the idiot Ranger Cadet admitted that he pointed a rifle at another person to bully them, or that he had the audacity to reveal his father's prejudices about a superior officer in front of the officer-in-charge. Either could trainwreck his father's career; both together was like asking to be standing in front of Roy when he activated the circle on his glove.

His protege also jumped to his feet, slamming his metal fist into the flesh one while licking his canines. "You want another love tap," he threatened the Druckmaschinen boy as he pointed at the other unbroken arm, "I'm happy to make it two for two. It's better than being your trick shot target with that stupid apple."

The von Trenck kid threw his bloody armband at Elric, who dodged it. "It was a stupid joke but you're too short, weak, and undisciplined to figure that out. You need to learn to defer to your betters."

The kid turned flame red.

"Betters! Weak! SHORT! At least I am not an idiot threatening a trick shot that only one in a million could make!" Elric screeched, his brogue thick, as he paced towards the couch.

At the same time, the lieutenant colonel marched toward him, yelling, "What kind of crazy kid are you?!" Roy strode forward towards von Trenck, trying to stop him from grabbing Ed by the collar.

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. All eyes slowly turned at whoever could be interrupting this bit of shit show.

"Yes, Lieutenant? " Grumman asked Lieutenant Hawkeye, who was staring with large eyes while saluting, her other hand holding some files.

She pointed at Roy. "I just need the Colonel's signature." The room's tension popped like air leaking out of a balloon.

Grumman nodded, "Well, come get it." She walked towards Roy, as he took out his black enamel pen from his breast pocket.

"Just an expense report for reimbursement purposes. It's due in a few minutes today if we want to be paid on time," she said, peering at Lieutenant Colonel von Trenck. Roy refrained from snorting. He wondered how long the report would take to be processed now. It would probably take weeks.

The POG5 of a payroll officer's lips barely lifted from above his pair of wobbling chins as he gave her a contemptuous, lecherous smile, his teeth slightly bared like he was a mouse being threatened by a fat, lazy housecat. "I might be late processing this," he said, gesturing to the room while clearly ogling her. Roy gritted his teeth as the steel nib scratched across various sheets of paper as he signed various documents, trying to ignore the intense desire he had to punch the lieutenant colonel. No wonder Elric went in hard - the von Trenck boy seemed to be a duplicate of his father.

General Grumman turned to face the Ranger Cadets and examined each boy as Riza started to cross the room to leave. "Trick shots?" he stated.

The blood drained from the boys' faces. "He's lying," the sandy-haired boy hurriedly disputed, rubbing his arm. The general snorted, shaking his head.

"Lieutenant, " Grumman called out right before she closed the door. She quickly spun back towards the desk, standing straight to attention.

"Yes sir?" she softly responded, glancing at Roy with a silent comment. He thinned his lips and closed his eyes for a moment - she was right, this was a total disaster, it would have been better for her to have taken Elric to the armory and range. When he opened them, von Trenck was grinning at him, his smile teasing some sort of secret knowledge. Roy balled his fists as the other man, not caring what the lieutenant colonel thought he knew.

"If a soldier was caught disobeying an order, or fighting, on the range, what would the punishment be?"

"A Section 14," she clearly responded.

The general smiled at her. "Lieutenant, don't leave. I need to talk to you after this." She walked towards von Trenck, and quietly handed her papers over to him, before striding over to a far corner of the room beside a bookcase full of bronze animal sculptures and clothbound books.

Grumman stared at Elric, who unsmilingly met his gaze. "While you are technically not a soldier, the military acts in loco parentis for you." He glanced over to Roy, annoyance laced across his features. "Colonel Mustang."

Roy closed his eyes as he thinned his lips into a small frown. Had he been in Ed's position, he probably would have also tried to thrash them to hell and back too. Knowing that the kid is half steel, frankly, the brats got off easy. He considered his options. Even with explicit permission from the brass to use, well, non-classical punishments, Roy didn't feel the need to embarrass the kid or make him do something stupid. Well, one of his soldiers had reported that over the weekend, Elric had borrowed a ton of books from an obscure private library in one of the nearby towns that he and his brother had hitched a ride to. Might as well give the kid time to read them undisturbed.

Roy licked his lips and focused onto Elric. "After you help fix whatever damage you might have done to the range, you're confined to your room for the next two weeks, unless you are working or eating. No more trips into any of the nearby towns after work or on the weekend. No trying to hang out with soldiers."

The kid gasped, his mouth dropping open.

"Don't make me extend it," Roy warned, boring into Elric's eyes. He hoped the kid got the message.

Elric closed his mouth and then stared down at the matryoshka doll statues that were lined up on the floor in the far corner. He looked back up at Roy and then glanced at the General, the kid's gold eyes huge in his face, before giving a slow nod. "May I go, sir," he softly asked Grumman.

The general tried not to smile. "You are dismissed, Mr. Elric." The kid saluted, walking out the door, and Roy had to shake his head.

The general twisted his head towards the couch and pushed his glasses up his nose before examining the two Ranger Cadets. The pair swallowed. Druckmaschinen's brat quickly glanced at the von Trenck hellion, whose neck was straining towards the general like an overextended supply line, before trying to shrink back into the couch that he had so quickly leaped out of earlier.

"I will be calling the district befehlshaber6. _If_ he allows you to stay in the Ranger Cadets, you can be assured leadership, badges, and awards will be stripped from you."

"But…." Lieutenant Colonel von Trenck interjected, his arms crossed in front of him. The general glanced briefly at the paymaster, his half-rimmed glasses nearly hiding the bitter rage in his eyes.

"I will be talking to your father as soon as he returns, Mr. Druckmaschinen. As for you Mr. von Trenck, I remand you to your father's hands. Now both of you, leave."

The brown-eyed boy helped the von Trenck boy up off the tawny couch, putting the other Ranger Cadet's arm around his shoulder. Together, they hobbled out of the Grumman's office under the general's watchful eyes, the soon-to-be-former hauptmann of the little cabal of teens wincing in pain as he was forced to reposition his ankle on the way out.

As his father closed the dark stained door, Grumman let his frustration start to spill. Gesturing at the vacated velvet couch, he ordered, "Sit."

Roy lowered himself into one of very firm sofa cushions, avoiding eye contact with von Trenck. As he relaxed into his seat, the tubby lieutenant colonel occupied the other side, his belly slightly wobbling as he sat.

_The man couldn't survive combat if he tried._

"You're destroying my son's future for the sake of some up-jumped farm boy with pretensions to power!" von Trenck spat out.

"Colonel Von Trenck, your son has this coming. Unlike the NCO's kameradschaft's hauptmann, your son has been caught trying to order enlisted men around. While they've laughed it off, other officers have been gossiping about how he's let his kameradschaft mildly abuse the resources I've graciously loaned to ALL of the Ranger Cadets associated with this base," Grumman coldly replied.

"My son would never! He's..." the lieutenant colonel protested.

"Your son is a spoiled bully lacking common sense," the general interrupted, lifting a hand. He stared over his glasses, his eyes chilly, and continued, "It's unsurprising he didn't get into any of the kadettenanstalt gymnasiums. You've failed to discipline him or even teach him the basics of comportment on a base. Taunting with a rifle! Even my top snipers would never dare take the shot he threatened with. What if your boy had missed!? He's lucky that the Fullmetal Alchemist went easy on him."

Roy coolly smiled. So far, the Old Fox was letting him off, and the POG was finally getting a lecture he deserved. Maybe he could finally convince the general to let him run his department expenses through the alchemical affairs office in Central Command now.

The general closed his eyes and tried to relax his jaw, his breath flaring his nostrils as he tried to collect himself. "While I have a reputation for leaving family matters alone, that I know more about what your boy is up to speaks volumes. This will go in your next performance review, Colonel. I expect the next time I see your family, particularly your son, they will be both contrite and behaving the way an officers' family is to behave. Am I understood?"

In a voice slightly above a whisper while looking the general in the eyes, von Trenck said, "Yes, sir." Roy suppressed a smirk as he watched the man's jowls shake as he swallowed.

"As for you Colonel Mustang, what were you thinking? I hear things from Central too. From what I understand, that boy deserves his commission and battle grade. Why are you trying to infantilize him?"

He started to search the room, his eyes moving between the loud oil painting by the window and a bronze bear in the bookcase that the General had bought as a colonel in the north years ago. He had never liked the fact that Elric was ferocious when provoked. It made him a target. Truthfully, Roy knew he kept hitting the bottle slightly too much whenever the kid overperformed on a report or analysis. Ed should be studying, playing stickball, getting ready for gymnasium, anything but sitting in an office or lab analyzing what terrorists and criminals are up to.

Closing his eyes briefly to steady himself, he said, "I wanted him to have a semblance of normalcy. He may be stuck with us, but he still needs space to be a kid."

"His childhood is over and he knows it. He's been running five miles every day and he spars nearly daily with that creation of his." Roy blinked and tilted his head. Elric was practicing for a fight? The kid told him he was researching. He'd seen the kid carrying obscure research tomes the few times he had seen Elric outside of work. He may not be closely watching Elric, but Roy figured one of his subordinates would tell him that the kid he was mentoring was training as a soldier on his own.

"I know his situation is... unusual, which explains why he's not in some sort of basic but sticking him with a bunch of students? Are you trying to taunt him? He seems to have accepted fate. Lieutenant." Grumman looked over to Riza, who was still silently blending into the background by the mahogany bookcase. "You are rated to train others with firearms, are you not?"

"I am, sir," she replied, nodding.

"You will work with the Fullmetal Alchemist and bring him up to the military's proficiency standard for both a rifle and pistol." The general stared back at Roy. Roy gulped. He'd seen Riza train promising privates fresh out of basic - she was a harsh taskmistress who demanded excellence, which made sense, given that she previously was ranked as one of the top ten snipers in the country, if not the top during Ishval. Last he heard, no one had beaten her field day score at Ritterdam either. Hawkeye would never let Elric take the exams if the kid would pass with just basic qualifications.

"And he will take the military's qualification and certification exams as well, and pass with a minimum of a sharpshooter's score, the same as I demand from my soldiers. I don't care if he never uses a firearm outside of a range. As long as the Fullmetal Alchemist lives on my base and works with my soldiers, he will uphold my standards."

"I understand," she acknowledged.

Grumman's blue-grey eyes glimmered like a scope's lens as it caught the light, even as his waxed mustache quivered as the general tried to still his face.

"I've also heard from the brass about the boy. Mustang, I want written reports of the Fullmetal Alchemist's progress and where and how you are thinking of using him. When you think he's ready, I will evaluate his strategic use."

Roy's mouth started to drop open. Grumman was purposely overstepping his command bounds with a battle certified non-soldier state alchemist, and giving him tons of paperwork to boot! He leaned back into the stiff couch cushion, trying to calm himself.

Closing his eyes, he realized he should be kicking himself for failing to see the obvious. Grand and Grumman have been playing golf together since before he even joined. He should have brought in Old Man Grumman into his schemes from the beginning. The Old Fox knew how to massage factions to his end while burying his enemies in memos. Now Roy was going to be the one buried.

Grumman's eye flicked towards the manilla file von Trenck held, before looking down to the rifles. "Now I believe you, Colonel von Trenck, has some paperwork to finish, and you, Colonel Mustang, have work to do as well. You're dismissed." the general said while shaking his head as he further examined the melted rifles.

Roy glanced over and watched the fat paymaster march out of his room, his face glowing like coal embers. At least he wasn't in too much trouble, outside of being forced to chat regularly with a feral thirteen-year-old kid about his life.

"Sir?" he lightly inquired as he got off the couch.

"You owe me an alchemical threat estimate for that new terrorist group in the Meath mining country," the general monotonously replied, still handling the rifle. "How the hell did he do this?" he muttered to himself.

"Sir?"

"What?" Grumman said, finally looking up.

Roy politely smiled. "Thanks."

Grumman snickered as he placed the rifle back on his desk. "Chess, Friday?"

Roy nodded as he straightened the golden aiguillette cord while he headed toward the door. The thing always got tangled on his coat buttons.

The general reached over to his intercom set and pressed the button. "Betty, put Mustang on my schedule for Friday for an hour at the end of the day and notify his office. Oh, and if you could, prep a teapot for two."

"I'll have the threat estimate in by then." The kid had a really easy report to do, and as much as he hated to admit it, Grumman basically implied that Roy had no more excuse for holding Elric back.

The general nodded as he hung up the handset. "And speak to the boy about his mouth. He's starting to sound like a Color Sergeant."

Sighing, Roy held the door for Grumman's leggy, cocoa-haired secretary, who was holding a tray with some of the officer's mess's best china. It was time to find the kid before he blew something else up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1A [Spalding Hi-Bounce Ball](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaldeen) aka a pink, very bouncy, rubber ball used in a lot of street games like stickball or handball [ return to text ]
> 
> 2 Comradeship, German. Essentially, a Ranger Cadet Troop [ return to text ]
> 
> 3 Leader or Captain, German. The lead cadet of the Ranger Cadet troop. (They are student-run at the most atomic level, with higher levels of the organization run by adults) [ return to text ]
> 
> 4 Cadet School, German. Amestris's best high schools are military high schools [ return to text ]
> 
> 5 Person Other than Grunt. Military Slang - used by combat arms soldiers (soldiers who close with and destroy enemy forces or provide firepower and destructive capabilities on the battlefield. Combat branches of the typically include Air Defense Artillery, Armor, Aviation, Engineers, Field Artillery, Infantry, and Special Forces. Roy fits this definition) to describe anyone in a support role the military [ return to text ]
> 
> 6 Commander/authority, german. The (paid) adult in charge of all of the Ranger Cadet troops in a specific district. [ return to text ]
> 
> * * *
> 
> Roy, you don't have a handle on how to deal with teens, do you?
> 
> Fun factoid: [Cursing in front of a minor](https://www.jordanucmjlaw.com/articles/article-134-indecent-language/) is a punishable offense under the American Uniform Code of Military Justice, under what is known as an [Article 15.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-judicial_punishment) If you want to extract that out to Amestris...someone is going to get in trouble for Ed's mouth.
> 
> * * *
> 
> So this chapter has my absolutely favorite characterization of Roy that I have ever written. It also has a subtle short joke in it. If you notice which one I am thinking of, leave a comment - and you will get a funny gif! Though generally speaking, I do answer comments, so if you got questions like, say, "Hey, where did the idea of the fake hyper-militarized boy scouts come from?," I will respond! or really, any thought!
> 
> As always, please subscribe, bookmark, leave kudos, or comment if this story intrigues you!


	3. Chapter 3

_Why didn’t he stand up for me?_

Ed slouched in one of the uncomfortable steel conference chairs that seem to litter every waiting area in Eastern Command, fuming. He knew this had been a fucking bad idea as soon as the words 'Ranger Cadets' had left the bastard’s smarmy lips. They had been giving him nothing but hell whenever they saw him, ever since the absurdly tall imbeciles had spotted him shirtless with Al in the base gym after sparring one afternoon. 

Not that he was shocked. The kids that had picked on him and Al in school had been exactly the same. Blonde bastard bullies from the west, with families with more money and connections than sense. Grannie had called them _Izgoi_1. When he asked what that meant, she pinched his cheek and told him to stop being an impertinent bean sprout. When he started to defend himself about his height, she had sighed, then turned away back towards her steaming pot filled with stew, mumbling something about how his sperm donor should have stuck around and taken charge the way he used to when she was a girl. 

The wood door swung open, and the two Ranger Cadets dragged themselves out of the door. The hauptmann2 turned his head and glared at Ed, his green eyes burning like sodium exposed to air. Ed shot them what he pretty sure was a rude gesture with his glove covered metal hand. The hauptmann’s nose flared and he squinted, balling his free fist. His friend, using his remaining good arm, steered the taller boy away. 

Ed snickered. From what he had overheard from the soldiers from the barracks connected to his subaltern’s suite, the general was a pushover unless you cocked up. And based on the way the imbecile was still reacting, they had definitely cocked up really badly. 

Then again, he was putting off the minimal cleanup at the range. He slumped back into the thin linen cushions of the chair. It was patently unfair that he was being grounded by the military. He was legally emancipated and was holding down a real, adult job, damn it. 

The brass hinges rasped as the door was violently opened. That pompous, belligerent twat of a lieutenant colonel strode out, his fat belly straining the brass buttons on his uniform. Ed glared at the twat, who had decided to stalk out a different chair, close to the secretary’s desk. The lieutenant colonel barely flicked his green, enraged eyes towards Ed, and then looked away, his cheeks stained redder than a cock’s comb, veins throbbing along his sweaty forehead and stubby neck. 

Ed’s nose flared as he snorted and glanced away towards the secretary’s cheap steel and enamel desk. It wasn’t right, being slandered and accused without hearing the entire story. Just because he was an alchemist didn’t mean he was a yellow-bellied coward who could be pushed around. Calling him a tiny hick with a penchant for lying was a step too far. 

A shrill brass bell rang from the inside of a bakelite handset that sat next to the secretary’s overflowing inbox. Ed shook his head and blinked a few times, waking him out of his short moment of woolgathering. The secretary picked up her pen and wrote something in a leather-bound datebook before getting up and smoothing invisible wrinkles on her wool skirt. She walked past the cotton battle flags with their tangled battle streamers, down the hall somewhere. 

Ed slunk back down in his chair, brushing off some dirt still stuck on his cotton trousers. He really should alchemize it off. He blew a lock of his bangs out of his eyes, hoping that the bastard was getting chewed out. The colonel deserved it - he kept nagging, even when Ed was sure he had done a good job at the lab. 

Ed briefly flicked his eyes as the secretary’s low heels clicked on the linoleum floor as she came back. She was balancing on a tray some sable cookies, a steaming teapot, and those expensive cups he had once seen in the kitchens when he had gone to beg for extra dessert after hours. He stood up and started to stroll towards the door. Granny would never forgive him if he forgot _all_ of his manners that she had desperately tried to teach him. 

Suddenly, the door swung open, and the secretary walked in. Out strode the bastard colonel, his pressed wool uniform a copy of the one that soldier on the recruitment poster he saw hanging on the buildings near the newsstand where he and Al tried to pick up a hitch into the city and beyond. Ed narrowed his eyes and started to open his mouth when suddenly the booming voice of that twat reverberated behind him. 

“Colonel!” 

Colonel Mustang cocked a single eyebrow, “Yes?” 

Von Trenck barged forward, eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring. He stepped into Mustang’s face. “You don’t know what loyalty means, you Xingese mongrel. This isn’t over. I will see to it that your fucking protege is thrown off a bridge like the runt of a litter he is, and I’ll make sure you’ll go with him!” 

Ed raced towards him, lips thin his arm pulled back to swing. He didn’t care what the smarmy bastard did next to calm the twat down. He needed steel in his gut. 

Calmly, Mustang flicked a white-gloved finger onto von Trenck’s ribbon bar. “Ishval campaign medal?” he calmly asked, pointing to a red and orange striped ribbon. 

“What of it?” the twat lieutenant colonel spat out, his eyes wide. 

“Funny, I don’t remember seeing you there,” his CO coldly stated. “I wonder how much it cost you to get one?” 

The lieutenant colonel turned pasty white and the skin around his green eyes grew tight. 

“I’ll make sure to let your men know about your .... bravery, in service of Amestris. And Central Command, of course.” His lips thinned into a vulturine smile. 

Shaking, the corpulent twat huffed, before spinning and scurrying out of the anteroom. Ed found himself suddenly letting go of his punch, his jaw loosening, as he stared at his commanding officer. Somehow, the bastard had caused the twat to back off. 

Mustang shook his head and blinked. 

“Edward.” 

Ed swallowed and looked at the Colonel. _Since when does he call me Edward?_ His round face could have been carved from ice. “Yeah?” 

“Never let them know where you are weak.” 

Ed eyebrows furrowed. What did it mean, where you were weak? The colonel stride away, the hobnails of his boots clicking on the linoleum floor. Ed peered down at his gloved hands and slowly clenched his steel hand into a fist, before staring down the hall, the battle flags flanking the entrance. 

He wasn’t weak. Was he? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Outsider, in Russian [ return to text ]
> 
> 2 Leader or Captain, German. The lead cadet of the Ranger Cadet troop. (They are student-run at the most atomic level, with higher levels of the organization run by adults) [ return to text ]
> 
> * * *
> 
> Ed, maybe you should stop copying vulgar things you do not understand?
> 
> * * *
> 
> I know I wrote it, but while I do think it makes sense for Roy, especially in a military context given the roughly appropriate time period analogs (1910ish-1950ish in our timeline) as a 20-something-year-old man to a kid he's in charge of but not his actual parent, to say "Never let them know where you are weak," I'm honestly not sure it's an appropriate thing to say generally to a 13-year-old boy still figuring himself out after getting into a fight because of bullying. I've had a variety of reactions to that line, I am curious what is yours. Leave a comment if you have thoughts on that debate (or anything that strikes you and made you think)
> 
> PS: I don't speak Russian. (or German!) If you do and think the inflection should change, let me know. I will update and change it.
> 
> As always, please subscribe, bookmark, leave kudos, or comment if this story intrigues you!


	4. Chapter 4

Sighing, Riza took herself out from the shadow of the tall bookcase and moved the side chair back to where it belonged, next to the game table. Closing her eyes, she slipped into the it and placed her hands in her lap. 

She hated these talks General Alonzo Beekman Grumman kept cornering her with. 

Riza heard the clink of the strainer on the officer’s china as he moved to pour a second cup. She glanced over to the general. He was gripping the edge of his desk, his head unnaturally bent compared to his normal soldier’s bearing. She pushed her bangs to the side and ignored the dryness in her mouth. 

The first time she saw him, he had sat straight behind the imposing desk as he forced her into a welcome interview while delivering files for Roy. She remembered him flipping them, the creases by his mouth and eyes becoming deep valleys of displeasure, as the general grilled her about her military career and plans. At the time, she wondered if she was going to be his new target as a skirt chaser. It hadn’t helped that ever since then, he had become far too interested in her life. She had been relieved when she had found out they were related - it made his attentions somewhat less awkward. 

“Sugar? Cream? Or lemon?” 

“Cream, please, sir,” 

“You know, You can call me opa, grandpappy, grandpop, whatever you’d prefer, Elizabeth,” the general gently said as he carried the two teacups to the table. She stopped herself from rolling her eyes. It felt unnatural to have a cute pet name for him. She hadn’t grown up with him: her father had hated the military, and as a child, he and her mother had barely exchanged letters. 

“We’ve been through this, sir. You’re my commanding officer. It wouldn’t be right.” She peered up, her dark amber eyes straining from the false smile between her pressed lips. She lifted her teacup and inhaled the floral scent of tea. It was the same kind of tea her mother drank, and she started to blink dust out of her eyes. She sipped, allowing the tea’s warmth to soothe her. 

His eyes flared behind his glasses, and then he briefly massaged his forehead “Your contract is up soon, correct?” 

She nodded. The cream gave the tea a milky note, like the chocolate bars her mother would buy for her when her father had a good month. 

The general took a sip from his cup. His hands shook and the china chinked as he set the cup down. 

“I know about the debts.” 

Her eyes went wide and she nearly dropped her cup. Since when did the general pull personal documents from the paymaster?! 

“You know?!” she said in a low voice. 

He gently took her hands into his surprisingly rough ones. “The military, especially combat arms, is no place for a lady. You can put that behind you now.” 

She blinked, pulling her hands back. “What?” 

“You're a fine young woman. A tad too old to come out formally, but I am sure we can find you a husband quickly.” He took a swig of his tea. 

She gripped the pale white teacup’s handle, her knuckles seemingly blending into the white bone china. Even if it had been an option when she was younger, she wouldn’t have wanted to go to East City or Central for the social season. She had never understood Rebecca’s obsession with military social events. Most of the cadets she had met as a plebe had been cads and most of the single officers she knew now weren’t much better. Somehow, the businessmen, especially the single ones, she had met the few times she had to accompany Roy had been even worse. Many seem to think the uniform, even the formal mess dress, was a license to ask for inappropriate favors. 

“I can’t.” She looked down and saw her killer’s eyes reflected in the pale maroon liquid, before taking another sip. She lost count of how many eyes like hers had she snuffed the lights out during the war - but she knew their remaining family would never forget. 

Grumman squinted at her and sniffed, his glasses emphasizing the annoyance in his heather blue eyes. 

“What do you mean, you can’t? It’s fine, I will pay off the last of the debt. You should become a mother, I want great-grandchildren.” 

She winced. Her father had been the same way, telling her what to do via a rhetorical question which only he had the right answer to. 

“I can’t.” 

“Can’t or won’t? I see how some of my officers look at you. And I’m aware of what soldiers say and _do_ behind closed doors.” 

She glanced away to hide the hint of a frown she was showing, towards the smiling face of her mother before she was married, redolent in a frilly white lawn dress. She almost wished his office had a hog board filled with half-dressed girls as opposed to the silver-framed photographs of the family she never got to really know - anything was better than looking at her mother as a young lady and her grandmother in her wedding dress. Her mother, her grandmother - they all would have been so disappointed in her. 

She squared her shoulder and looked into the grey-lilac eyes he shared with her mother. Despite its many flaws, Ritterdam taught her more about the woman she was than any other experience she’d had. That the boys in the military chose to drag the reputations of nearly all of the women she knew in the military through the mud was their problem. 

“Can’t,” she said firmly. 

Her grandfather cocked his head and squinted through his glasses, scrutinizing her face. “Have you ever fraternized with him?” 

She pulled back into the chair and blinked. Did he really just ask that? What kind of person did he think she was? Did he really believe that she would risk her career and reputation by sleeping with Roy now? 

She sipped from her cup in order to hide her growing frown. 

“Him?” she lightly said. 

He tapped his fingers on the table, as he continued to examine her with a fierce intelligence. She bit her lip and swallowed, the tea failing to calm her nerves. Maybe his supposed dalliances were as fake as Roy’s. 

“Mustang, your commanding officer.” 

The cup clinked as she set it down firmly on its saucer. Her cheeks turned rosy but she stared back at him, refusing to break eye contact. What they had done was in the past. They agreed that their plans were more important than the risks of continuing… 

“I currently have a completely professional relationship with him.” 

Her grandfather slumped back into his chair and looked away. He took off his glasses and lightly tapped them against his severe frown. Riza cocked her head - she could swear his eyes were a tad red. He snorted and stuck his frames back on. Pushing them up the bridge of his nose, he leaned forward over his teacup to meet her eyes. 

“We can fix this.” 

Her jaw dropped. What had happened wasn’t a problem. She wasn’t a problem. She stood, leaving her cooling tea half-drunk on the game table. 

“If I were the Colonel, you’d be joking about it,” she said, her voice catching. 

“Elizabeth...” he pleaded. 

She fled towards the door and saluted, glancing towards the many bronze trophies that littered his bookshelves. This needed to end. She wondered if her mother had felt the same before she ran away with her father. 

“Permission to leave, sir?” 

He crossed his arms and pushed himself back against his chair. “You’re much too much like your mother,” the general coldly grunted as his gaze bored into hers. 

“Tell my secretary that I want to have lunch with the Fullmetal boy this week. If you won’t give me great-grandkids, I’ll..” 

The handle to his office shook as she slammed the door behind her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They probably wouldn't bother her if they knew how much of a prodigy with a rifle she is
> 
> * * *
> 
> Sorry about the delay. I had a very bad eye stye last weekend and it made it very hard to look at a monitor.
> 
> On Riza and some of her thoughts: I might read too much Task and Purpose and memoirs of women in the US military. FYI: Combat Arms have only been open to women in the last decade.
> 
> This time I didn't footnote the three potential stumbling points (plebe, combat arms, and hog board) - should I have? Let me know if you prefer with or without the footnotes.
> 
> And, as always, please subscribe, bookmark, leave kudos, or comment if this story intrigues you!


	5. Chapter 5

The tick of the stopwatch drilled at what remained of Ed's nerves in his shoulder as he fumbled for the seventeenth time to place the right amount of pressure onto the extractor to disassemble the pistol before the lieutenant stopped the watch. He bit his lip, trying to get a firm handle on the metal to slide it off the bolt as the seconds sped by.

“Time,” the lieutenant called.

He closed his eyes and scrunched his nose, crossing his hands in front of his chest. The bloody thing was impossible to grip and he wasn’t allowed to wear his gloves.

Ed avoided the lieutenant’s cool gaze as he scowled down at the various rifle pieces strewn across the wood desktop, instead of neatly placed in order like he had been instructed. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath through his nose. Elikma the Immanent, not for the first time, he wished he had a functioning hand with real fingerprints. Winry was the best, but the light etchings on his metal fingers weren’t the same when it came to fiddly things. Granny and she had made him wear gloves for a fucking reason, and it wasn’t to hide Winry’s craftsmanship.

He peered up at Lieutenant Hawkeye’s still face “Can I use my gloves?”

She shook her head once. “No.”

He wrinkled his nose as he set to work, painstakingly picking up every stupid tiny piece, and slowly assembling his half-disassembled rifle. He glared up when he finished.

“Ready...Now.” The button on the stopwatch clicked again. Again, the pieces of the bolt seemed to slip out of his grip as soon as he tried to take apart the mechanism. Ed stared down at the rifle, his hand shaking, his stomach pitching like a rolling boat in a storm.

“Time.”

Panting to avoid feeling the heat blurring his vision, Ed threw the cocking piece and the rest of the bolt, hard against the desk. They clattered as they scuttled across the wood surface onto the laminate floor. He still couldn’t even disassemble in time, how would he be able to field strip and reassemble the goddamn rifle fast enough even to be allowed on the range.

“I don’t need to learn this crap.”

He clapped his hands and placed them on the tabletop. A delicate robin in flight, his mom’s favorite bird, each feather carved out using the dense pattern of the grain, emerged from a cloud of electrical bolts. She would be heartbroken if she were alive to see him now. Ed slouched into the uncomfortable metal seat and refused to look into the lieutenant's concerned eyes. He glanced around. There were safety diagrams of the various rifles and pistols used by the military covering the armory’s classroom wall, all taunting him.

“Sir...”

He sharply glanced towards her, his eyes molten and narrowed. “Don’t call me that!” he lashed out before looking away. He searched the posters and started to count the number of pieces in some technical drawing of some pistol.

“Fullmetal.”

“What?” he said in a monotone, his arms crossed in front of him as he shrunk away.

“Your differences are what makes you strong,” she said softly.

He lifted his gaze to her auburn eyes. She was studying him - there was something intense in her gaze. Maybe regret or understanding? He knew some soldiers didn’t like how she was an adjutant to an “up and coming colonel.” Ed kept hearing various officers in the mess’s anteroom, where he took lunch) gossiping about how women shouldn’t be in the military (outside of the typists and clerks, who were often considered regimental groundsheets1, whatever that was). They often claimed her shooting score on the range must be impossible, and that she must have some special sway with the general, who apparently kept asking her to tea alone.

“I know you are, technically...”

“Not in the military, just wearing its collar. Brevet rank2. Yadda yadda. So why am I doing this?” Ed clapped his hands, letting the formulas for transmuting wood flood his mind. The tectonic energy flowed through him as he smoothed the bird away. He peered down and scratched at the lone, tiny transmutation mark. Getting the grain back to normal was always a pain.

Her voice turned sharp. “Because you’re going to be sent out in the field with soldiers against people who are armed and who will not hesitate to use them against you once they realize who you are.”

He swallowed and stared up at her, searching her face. She was glancing out onto one of the range through the window in the back of the classroom, her mouth slightly pursed.

Missions, with soldiers? He had taken a peek at the background files for some of the lab work he had been doing. Soldiers could die if he screwed up. And based on what he read off the headlines he had seen in the newsstand near the base’s entrance, so could everyday Amestrians, people like his neighbors at home. And if he died, what would happen to Al? He started to chew on the inside of his cheek.

She let out a deep breath and gave him a piercing look.

“I know you can hold on your own in a fight, but this knowledge could potentially save your life.”

“I’m not gonna kill anyone,” he quietly said.

The lieutenant gave him a look. His eyes went wide and he licked his lips.

“I’m not,” Ed insisted. He wasn’t sure if he could be that kind of violent. It was one thing to help people who needed it. What had happened in November had been scary, even if he didn’t want to admit it aloud. He hadn’t liked how he had felt once the shock of what he had done had passed.

“And I’m not going to let anyone die on my watch.”

She calmly continued, “As I said, your differences are what makes you strong.”

She bent down and gathered the various pieces of the bolt action from the ground. Standing up, the lieutenant started to reassemble the pieces. They clinked over her soft voice as she screwed a lug onto the rest of the cocking piece.

“What those boys did was wrong.”

Ed leaned his head on his left hand and snorted, his lips twisting. He wouldn’t have wanted to be their friend anyway. His stomach coiled into a Lissajous knot3 as he went back to staring at posters. Pitt was still in Resembool. Ed wondered who he would go hiking through the pine groves by the river with later this spring.

“Whatever, it’s not like I had time for friendships anyway. I have stuff to do. Research.”

Lieutenant Hawkeye placed the rifle on the desk’s wood top. Ed flicked his eyes down and cringed; his jaw felt stiff as he tried to shrink back into the stiff back of the chair. Despite its simple, clean lines, the rifle’s black barrel seemed to carry a shadow of death that he hoped to never bring to others ever again.

He reached out for it again, when the lieutenant suddenly interrupted, “May I take a look at your hand? The automail one.”

Ed’s eyes went wide. “Uhh...sure?” The overhead light gleamed off his outstretched palm, bringing even the tiniest of screws that Winry used into sharp relief. He watched as Lieutenant Hawkeye barely traced the fake lifeline created by the seams of the pressure plates. He blinked, wishing he knew what it felt like.

“You can’t feel this, can you?” she asked softly.

“You, uhh...you have to press down slightly for the pressure plates to activate. And it’s only so so.”

He quickly pulled his hand away, staring briefly at her soft eyes before squinting down at the rifle. Ed pondered what the carbon content of the steel was. Maybe it had an interesting crystalline structure. He wondered if the alloy in the military standard was similar to the one he had briefly been given by those imbeciles before they tried to shoot him. Maybe the alloy was closer to his arm. Too bad he almost definitely wasn’t allowed to transmute this gun. Lieutenant Hawkeye had lectured him on the armory’s rules: if he wasn’t carrying it around for some reason, it was to remain locked up, accounted for by the ordnance officer at all times.

Ed grimaced and started to toy at the bolt. The lieutenant would probably start timing him again soon. He peered down at the rifle and sighed. He had to get through this somehow, even if he chose to never touch a rifle again after whatever training he got. Though he had no idea how he was going to qualify without his gloves.

“There’s a slightly different way to take apart the various pieces if you are willing to learn with your left hand, Fullmetal.”

He gave a tiny gasp and ran his metal fingers through his bangs. Ed nodded. Maybe this mountain was conquerable. His eyes crinkled at the side as he gave her a timid smile, the stiffness in his back disappearing as he scootched closer to the desk.

“Call, uhh, call me Edward.” Ed rubbed the back of his neck before taking the rifle in his hands

She smiled back and placed her hands over his. He briefly closed his eyes; the knot in his stomach disappeared as he reveled under the cool touch of her hands.

“Edward, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1A very rude thing to call a woman in the military. Groundsheets are a waterproof tarpaulin meant to line the ground in a tent so you can sleep on the ground. For more specific information [go here](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Glossary_of_military_slang#R). Also,no, Ed hasn't read between the lines. [ return to text ]
> 
> 2[To quote Wikipedia,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brevet_\(military\)) "was a warrant giving a commissioned officer a higher rank title as a reward for gallantry or meritorious conduct but without conferring the authority, precedence, or pay of real rank." I'm stretching the term a tad here. Ed and others consistently claim that he has the rank _equivalent_ to a major as a state alchemist. In other words, Ed isn't actually fully commissioned as a military officer, unlike Roy or Alex Louise Armstrong: he's _only commissioned_ as a State Alchemist. As a result, no one calls him Major Elric, because he's not actually a Major - but he has the authority to command if necessary. The closest in real life equivalent I can think of is a discussion I once saw in [The Unforgiving Minute](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Unforgiving_Minute/2cCj6Y3_DvIC). The author describes working with a CIA team of sorts in Afghanistan. Technically they are outside the rank structure but... [ return to text ]
> 
> 3A [Lissajous knot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lissajous_knot) is any one of a group of specific kinds of knots in knot theory (a branch of topology) [ return to text ]
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> * * *
> 
> You are legitimately right to be frustrated, Ed. I would have allowed the gloves.
> 
> * * *
> 
> Here we are at the end of my very first story! I hope everyone liked it!
> 
> General notes around this particular chapter:
> 
> The rifle Ed is assembling/disassembling, the DK1903 Cowans-Mannlicher is conceptually based on the Pattern 1914/US M1917 Lee-Enfield if you are really that curious. It would have been roughly period-ish to guns seen in series and the generic technology timeline as seen in the series. The actual rifles regularly seen are more modern according to that [one website](http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Fullmetal_Alchemist:_Brotherhood) that tracks weapons in movies. I also created a nomenclature (as seen in [Chapter 2](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24814819/chapters/60350116#workskin) based off the Lee-Enfield name because ~~I'm crazy~~ I like to build details into the world. While Mannlicher is a real brand name for a gunsmith, in this universe, the company doesn't exist. The gun isn't real!
> 
> The reason I didn't footnote the rifle pieces - I actually watched a bunch of youtube videos to figure out the rifle & then I got tortured with NRA videos. I'd suggest the same to you if you are curious.
> 
> I'm still building out the theology of Elikmaism. It generically came out of the idea that Amestris (and possibly some other countries) need a dominant religion to compare to Ishval and Xing. If you got thoughts, feel free to mention them. For all you know, you may get a thank you in another story.
> 
> General notes around the story:
> 
> While this chapter was written last, it was basically the genesis of the entire story. I wanted to answer the questions "Why are Edward and Riza close?" and "What would possess Riza to give Edward her pistol during that battle with Gluttony, as sharing a pistol like that is a big No-No?"
> 
> This story (obviously) is part of a series. I'm actively working on it and will start posting soon the story behind "the event in November." So stay tuned and subscribe to the series if you want to be updated as soon as that is done. Note: Updates will be slower, as I am volunteering with a military nonprofit while job hunting...which ironically happened because I was doing research for this story.
> 
> Finally, I do answer all comments, so if you got questions or really, any thoughts, ask away! (should I start a Tumblr with my research/headcanons? Let me know!)
> 
> Finally, please subscribe, bookmark, leave kudos, or comment if you liked this story! Bookmarking, leaving kudos, and comments are ways people search here on AO3 - so by kudosing, commenting, & bookmarking you help surface this story for other people just like you!
> 
> Thank you everyone who was along for the ride! See you soon in the next story!

**Author's Note:**

> So....First Fic! I would love to hear thoughts! (also kudos are always fun and appreciated!)
> 
> I should probably take the opportunity to thank my officialTM beta reader, [HypnoticNurse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HypnoticNurse), for his amazing support and encouragement as well as double-checking (most) of my grammar, I'd also like to thank the numerous readers of the draft edition for their excellent comments about writing style and military mannerisms, especially in the FMA discord server(s) and general writing servers I am a part of (you know who you are!). Thank you [ATOV](https://archiveofourown.org/users/athingofvikings/pseuds/athingofvikings) for encouragement and support from very early on when I was barely considering writing fanfiction.
> 
> Onto more practical notes  
> Yes, the title is based on the Pete Seeger song. If you leave similar music in the comments I will listen.
> 
> Finally, an update: This fic is a followup to [The Innocent and the Damned](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27169555/chapters/66357043). I'd love it if you read it took!


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